Moreya

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Moreya or Moriya (洩矢神, Moriya- / Moreya-no-Kami) is a Japanese god who appears in various myths and legends of the Suwa region in Nagano Prefecture (historical Shinano Province). The most famous of such stories is that of his battle against Takeminakata, the god of the Grand Shrine of Suwa (Suwa Taisha). Moriya is regarded as the mythical ancestor of the Moriya clan (守矢氏), a priestly family that formerly served in the Upper Suwa Shrine (上社, Kamisha), one of the two sub-shrines that make up Suwa Taisha. In addition, he is venerated as a local tutelary deity (ubusunagami) in a shrine in Okaya City near the Tenryū River, which in later variants of the aforementioned myth is identified as the place where Takeminakata and Moriya fought each other. Whereas local historians have traditionally interpreted the myth as a mythologized account of a historical struggle between a powerful local polity in the Lake Suwa region and its environs, associated with the Moriya, and an incoming group identified with the Suwa clan, the high priestly lineage of the Upper Suwa Shrine, alternative interpretations have questioned this historical reading. One view holds that the myth was gradually influenced by medieval traditions concerning the historical conflict between Prince Shōtoku and the anti-Buddhist ōmuraji Mononobe no Moriya. Another proposes that the myth is of comparatively late origin and was constructed on the basis of this Shōtoku–Moriya narrative, with Mononobe no Moriya serving as the model for the local deity Moriya.